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I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the center of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting.
It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China?
The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist.
“Denn die Todten reiten schnell”— (“For the dead travel fast.”)
solicitor’s clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner?
“Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!”
more like the hand of a dead than a living man.
His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion.
I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me!
But still in none of the rooms is there a mirror. There is not even a toilet glass on my table, and I had to get the little shaving glass from my bag before I could either shave or brush my hair.
This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror!
When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there.
In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit. The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner!
In his speaking of things and people, and especially of battles, he spoke as if he had been present at them all.
this diary seems horribly like the beginning of the “Arabian Nights,” for everything has to break off at cock-crow—or like the ghost of Hamlet’s father.)
Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret; for in this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength.
